mon 16/06/2025

New Music Reviews

BaBa ZuLa, Jazz Cafe review - much more than mere entertainment from 'Turkish Psych' specialists

mark Kidel

BaBa ZuLa only fully manifest their free spirit when they play live, and in the intimate setting of a venue like the Jazz Cafe, where the entre audience is close to the stage.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Gene Clark - No Other

Kieron Tyler

Three years after its release, Gene Clark explained where he was heading while creating 1974's No Other. “I was strongly influenced at that time by two other artists. Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions and [The Rolling Stones’s] Goat’s Head Soup.

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CD: fka twigs – mary magdalene

Kathryn Reilly

Tahliah Barnett has been having a rough old time of it. There was that doomed celebrity romance (Robert Pattinson) and some health issues (I’m not entirely sure if we need to know about her operation to have fibroids removed) but suffering, as we are all aware, is the fuel of creativity.

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Lisa Stansfield, Royal Albert Hall - mutual Affection, 30 years on

Liz Thomson

Rochdale boasts quite a number of star turns but those that spring readily to mind are William Walton, Andy Kershaw, Barb Jungr, Gracie Fields and Lisa Stansfield. And here’s a good pub quiz question: what, apart from Rochdale, links Gracie and Lisa? It’s their shared surname! Gracie dropped the first four letters and rearranged the remaining five.

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Little Simz, EartH review - bossing it

Katherine Waters

Little Simz exits through the ladies. It's telling, since her set at EartH is the capstone to a tour that, by her own admission, has left her rinsed, broken friendships, torn her away from her family and led her to question her career. And yet, as she wends past the women in the queue that snakes down the corridor, who whoop and thank her for the show, she's obviously buzzing. 

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Charli XCX, SWG3, Glasgow - stripped of the gimmicks, but still the whole package

Lisa-Marie Ferla

Considered logically, releasing an album as heavy on guest features as Charli XCX’s newest should present particular logistical problems when it comes to recreating the tracks on tour. Charli’s approach is the opposite: no gimmicks or trickery, just minimalist techno hedonism powered by nothing but strobe lights and sheer charisma.

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Sunn O))), The Crossing, Birmingham review – ambient metallists bring the noise

Guy Oddy

Sunn O))) must have been on stage at The Crossing for a fair few minutes before anyone from the capacity audience realised they were there. Bathed in a thick fog of dry ice, initially all that could be seen were the power-on lights of the band’s impressive mountain of amplifiers and speakers.

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Raincoats

Kieron Tyler

Rough Trade’s first album was Stiff Little Fingers’s Inflammable Material.

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Kiefer Sutherland, Shepherd's Bush Empire review - actor totally convinces as country rocker

Ellie Porter

There’s no getting around it – it’s very surreal indeed to be in the Shepherd’s Bush Empire and see an eye-wateringly famous movie and TV star rocking out on stage.

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Hot Chip, Barrowland, Glasgow review - dancefloor kings keep the party going

Jonathan Geddes

Familiarity evidently does not breed contempt, at least in the case of Hot Chip and Glasgow. This was the band’s third appearance on Glaswegian soil since April, and what a glorious, life-affirming evening it was.

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